Renishaw enhances Team GB’s success with Additive Manufacturing for 2024 Paris Olympics track bike
August 29, 2024
Renishaw, based in Wotton-Under-Edge, Gloucestershire, UK, is celebrating the role it played in providing Additive Manufacturing expertise for the manufacture of a highly successful track bike for British Cycling at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. Team GB brought home eleven medals in cycling, eight of which came from the track.
The 2024 Olympics was very successful for Team GB’s track cyclists. A highlight being Katy Marchant, Sophie Capewell, and Emma Finucane’s gold medal in the women’s team sprint, where they came from behind to break the world record for a third time in one day.
After the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo, British Cycling, the national governing body for cycling in Great Britain, knew it wanted to extend its existing partnerships with Lotus Engineering, Renishaw and Hope Technology, to develop and manufacture its bike for the 2024 Olympic Games. However, due to COVID delays to the 2020 Games and shorter deadlines to present a new bike for 2024, it was under significant time constraints to deliver an optimised bike.
British Cycling’s bike needed to deliver maximum performance in speed, balance and aerodynamics to assist the riders, who faced fierce competition at the Games. This made the design and manufacturing capabilities, including metal Additive Manufacturing, a critical part of the organisation’s efforts to help Team GB maximise its medal haul.
“The carbon fibre parts produced using traditional machining methods for the Tokyo bike met all the requirements we had, but time constraints for the Paris bike meant that this method was no longer viable for some bespoke parts,” explained Dr Oliver Caddy, Lead Project Engineer at British Cycling. “After seeing the benefits of AM and what it helped us achieve on the Tokyo bike, we knew it could be a manufacturing method to explore further.”
Ben Collins, Lead Additive Manufacturing Applications Engineer at Renishaw, added, “After determining that the British Cycling team could not produce core crank and seat posts components in carbon fibre within the shorter time frame required, we began creating some additively manufactured prototypes in plastic.”
“Additive Manufacturing enabled us to create complex geometries that removed any unnecessary weight while delivering the strength required for the athletes to reach racing speed. To develop a more aerodynamic seat post, engineers designed more free-form geometries to hollow out the part as much as possible, something that would not be achievable using traditional methods,” added Collins.
“We are delighted for British Cycling on another successful Olympic Games and to be able to play a part in this. It’s a fantastic achievement and a great showcase of the benefits of Additive Manufacturing,” Collins concluded.
British Cycling’s partnership with Renishaw resulted in a first-of-its-kind aerodynamic seat post, featuring a hollow centre and backward-leaning design. This allows airflow through the centre of the bike. Additive Manufacturing facilitated the rapid production of unique titanium seat posts to the exact measurements of the individual riders. Over the course of the project, Renishaw manufactured over 1,000 parts to support 32 track bikes plus spares.
The new bike was used by Great Britain’s track cyclists during the track cycling events at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games National Velodrome, which took place from August 5 to 11.
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